Ideal Perfection
by Meilin Li
Summary: Meiling's life in China was not what one would've thought... -complete-


AN: Well I wrote this ficcy a while ago and decided to post it. In this ficcy, Meiling and Syaoran are 10. This is before they go to Tomeoda, Japan, so the setting is still in China. This fic focuses on Meiling's life in China and such. It more focuses on her family life than it does on her magic (or rather lack of) and friendship with Syaoran. I deliberately made their personalities opposite to how they would act in Tomeoda for the sole purpose of irony. So Syaoran might seem out of character. 

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Silence. It was engulfing everything, everywhere like the heavy blanket of the darkened world. Dreams of shattered worlds. Sirens and shouts. Screaming and crying. Yelling and pounding. Drips of dark red waters. Dripping into a river and dissolving away into the deep cerulean sea. 

Once, as the soft sweet melody of life, the song started out slowly and delicately. The tune blending in with the harmonious lives. The notes dancing around on the measures and bars, acting like the little ballerinas they are. A deep silence resides as the euphonious beginning dwindles away, slowly...to nothing. 

The harsh emptiness is heard and agony is faced until it finally explodes into a deafening clatter of notes. The clanging of the muddled tunes attempting to be incorporated into one. Trying for that silvery beginning in which they have all performed previously. Trying but failing. 

The clashes continue on until a solitary instrument joins in, playing a eerily haunting composition. A flute with it's deep wooden pitch perfected against the silk petals of a insightful black rose bud.

It tells of a story...a story of a girl mistreated with words. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." How wrong that is. Words do hurt, they hurt much more than what a thousand sticks and stones can do...

Meiling glanced at her red journal with a melancholy expression upon her face. She wasn't sure if she should write down all her problems. Her teacher had suggested that she do so, but she didn't know if she _wanted_ it written down. She reluctantly walked over to her desk slowly and pulled out a blue ruffle feathered topped pen. Almost hesitantly picking up her journal, she laid down on her bed and flipped to the first clean page...

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Hi...I'm Meiling Li, and I'm ten years old. I live in China with my family and my best friend and fiancé Syaoran Li. I am a gifted Martial Arts fighter and I train with Syaoran. Sometimes I even beat him at it...

Meiling wrote awkwardly for the first few lines before her emotions got the better of her and everything poured out. And before long, it was came to be a letter to her parents.

...I don't want to be disgraceful to the family name, I don't want to be a failure. But that's what is said of me. ...I try not to be though. I try my very very very best to not be what you don't want me to be. I try because I don't want to disappoint you, but I disappoint you anyway. 

You tell me that I'm like no other, that I'm a terror all in it's own. Your friend's children are ideal, perfect students. Ha! Hardly, you don't know them. Not like I do, I've seen their faults, their imperfect scores, their failures. But it's not like how you see it, you only see what you want to, their accomplishments and angelic personalities. 

You see the flawlessness in them that is supposedly not present in me. What do you see in me? As you've told me a million times, I'm kind of like a rotten black jagged stone amongst a vastness of shimmering white pebbles. That's me, the black one. The shameful one. 

I try with all my being, but do you ever see my achievements? No, you see my faults. If only you could see past that and see what I am and not what you think me to be. I'm not the black stone you believe I am, I'm one of those polished white pebbles too. Although occasionally I do have black specks on my surface; those specks represent my faults, my broken promises, and the imperfect me. 

If you really think about it, who really is faultless in this world of hatred and violence? Do you really think that all the pebbles are white? The answer is no. They hide it, so masterfully with white paint, but they can't ever make it go away, for it'll always be a part of them. The specks of black I mean. 

You pour out all your distress by pointing out my defects daily. And yes, I do have much that is wrong with me, but I also have much that is good. You can't expect me to be perfect, because I'm not. I'm still growing, learning by trial and error. You can't expect me to know something before I even do it. I can't do everything you expect me to do excellently, flawlessly. I'm not_ Syaoran, and even him I would believe can't do everything his parent's expect of him._

Living with you has brought me to be like you, loud and independent. Being an adult, you think I'm a brat, always talking back. I guess on some level I am, but I'm just trying to inform you that you're not always right, you're human. And humans make mistakes. I wish you could see that everybody is not what they seem and they're not the idealized beings you believe them to be. 

But they don't live with you, so you can't see their specks of undeniable faults. The truth of the matter is, nobody is perfect. Please don't expect me to be. Expecting that of me is too much, I'm only a child, let me live my childhood and gain insightful memories in which I can cherish forever. 

Even without magic, I am strong. I know I am, for I can withstand most everything that is thrown my way. Please, let me live out my last years of childhood and when I go off into the big world alone. I promise you, I will make you proud. And if not then, I will. Someday. 

I just wished I have a chance to do so now...

"Meiling!!!" She heard 10 year old Syaoran call as the hallway floor pounded from under his feet.

The crimson eyed little girl sighed when he opened the door, breathing hard, "What is it Syaoran?"

Syaoran grinned and walked happily into her room. "Mama and Aunt said you could eat at our house tonight. Isn't that great?? I can sho-" The owner of the tousled amber hair stopped mid-sentence and blinked, noticing her forlorn expression and her opened journal filled with furious scribbles. Curious, he took a seat next to her on her bed and looked at her, expectantly, "Meiling? Are you feeling okay?"

Meiling blushed at his close proximity and abruptly slammed her journal shut. "S-sure." She gave him a large smile, "I was just thinking."

"Oh? About what?" His inquisitiveness was making her feel uncomfortable and she squirmed under his gaze.

"Nothing important," she replied. "So what is it that you wanted to show me?" Meiling asked before he could get another question in.

The boy's worried face broke into a giddy grin as he began to describe his new lasin board with her anew. However, all the raven haired mistress could do was look down at her journal ruefully and nod once in a while to Syaoran's ramblings.

Little did Meiling know that she'd be getting her wish soon.

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And as the solo flute ends it's song, it smiles through it's pain. Giving everyone around it the sensation of smiling back. And they do. Smiling, it settles back into it's case, knowing that even with such a life, it's not disappointed in being given one. It'll all end soon anyway.


End file.
